Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/83

 prefect well-informed or ill-informed, and thus influence his commands ; and even after the commands are issued they can frustrate them, for the execution of the orders of their superior is entirely in their hands. It is when both ajun and prefect are bad together and connive at the spoliation of the people that serious trouble arises. This is often enough the case ; but, as we have seen, the ajun always has the curb of public opinion upon him, and oppression in any extreme sense is the exception rather than the rule.

The temptations of the ajun are very great. The whole revenue of the district passes through his hands, and it would be surprising if some of it did not stick to them. The prefect wants all that he can get, and watches the ajun as closely as he can ; and at the same time the latter is trying to get as much out of the people as he may, not only for the prefect but for himself as well. He is thus between two fires. The people are ever trying to evade their taxes and jump their revenue bills. It is truly a case of diamond cut diamond. The qualities necessary to become a successful ajun make a long and formidable list. He must be tactful in the management of the prefect, exact in his accounts, firm and yet gentle with the people, resourceful in emergencies, masterful in crises, quick to turn to his advantage every circumstance, and in fact an expert in all the tricks of the successful politician. One of his most brilliant attainments is the ability to make excuses. If the people charge him with extortion, he spreads out expostulatory hands and says it is the prefect's order; and if the prefect charges him with short accounts, he bows low and swears that the people are squeezed dry and can give no more.

We have already shown that there is a " dead line," beyond which the people will not let the prefect go in his exactions. For the most part the official is able to gauge the feeling of the populace through the ajuns, but now and then he fails to do so. The people of the north are much quicker to take offence and show their teeth than those in the south. I remember once